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Major Stumbling Blocks to Veganism in the NT Resolved. By Dr. Chapman Chen

Writer's picture: Chapman ChenChapman Chen



 

There are verses in the New Testament which appear to be anti-vegan, e.g., Jesus distributed and ate fish (Luke 24:42-43; John 21:9-13), Jesus declared all foods clean (Mark 7:18-19 NIV), Jesus sent 2000 pigs to death (Mark 5:11-13 NIV), God commanded Peter to kill and eat animals (Acts 10:13 NIV), Jesus commanded us to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have our sins forgiven (John 6:53-56 NIV), John the Baptist ate locusts (Matthew 3:4 NIV), Paul encouraged people to "eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience" (1 Corinthians 10:25 NIV). These messages are either misinterpretations or interpolations, which will be debunked one by one below.


1. All Fishy Stories about Jesus: Debunked

 

Instances of Jesus the Vegan Christ eating fish or helping His disciples to catch fish in the gospels are all products of either misinterpretation or later interpolation.

 

I. Jesus miraculously aided Peter and his folk to catch a huge net of fish (Luke 5:1-11)? But Jesus then asked them to FORSAKE their NETS, follow Him and CATCH MEN INSTEAD OF FISH. Matthew 4:18-20 and Mark 1:16-18 also record this story albeit without the first part.

 

II. Jesus directed Peter to go hook a fish and dig a coin from her/his mouth in order to pay a temple tax (Matthew 17:24-27)? This could not be real for, firstly, it was never executed; secondly, it's improbable that Jesus would have performed a complex miracle in order to pay his own tax; thirdly, how could Jesus, who died for animal liberation (Akers 2000), have had the heart to order his disciple to do such a cruel thing to an innocent fish? So, this instruction, if ever existent, was a sarcastic joke cracked by Jesus to brush off the temple tax collector who wanted to trap Jesus (cf. White 1898/2017:376-377).

 

III. Jesus multiplied "five loaves and two fish" to feed the multitudes (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:12-17, John 6:1-14)? However, Jesus therein broke and handed out loaves but not fish (Matthew 14).

 

Moreover, the Greek word for fish (ἰχθύας), as in Mark 6:41, Matthew 14:19, and Luke 9:16, is an acronym for " Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior" (Akers 2000), a secret code commonly used by the early Christians to avoid persecution; and "fish (opsarion)", as in John 6:9, may also be a mistranslation of the Greek word for "fishweed (opson)" (Hicks 2019; Giron 2013), a popular vegan relish among Palestinian peasants both 2000 years ago and now.

 

IV. Luke's story of Jesus helping Peter to catch fish and His eating fish to prove to the eleven disciples on the very night of his Resurrection that he's no ghost is clearly a forgery, for both the date and the venue contradict Mark and Matthew (cf. Vujicic 2016). According to Mark 16: 7 and 14:28, Jesus had long told his disciples that he would go to Galilee upon resurrection. According to Matthew 28:16, the eleven disciples went up a mountain in Galilee as specified by Jesus, where Jesus met them the first time as well as the last time after He rose from the dead.   https://www.hkbnews.net/post/all-those-fishy-stories-about-jesus-the-vegan-christ-by-dr-chapman-chen-hkbnews  

 

2. Jesus Did Not Eat the Passover Lamb

 

Jesus did not eat lamb at Passover for he deliberately held the Last Supper before Passover (John 13:1-2). The Eucharist was a plain meal of bread and wine and the Gospels do not reveal any other articles on the menu (cf. Webb 2011c:21). It is highly unlikely that meat was served at a meal because Jesus says, “I desire compassion, rather than sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13; 12:7 NASB). https://www.hkbnews.net/post/jesus-did-not-eat-meat-go-vegan-by-chapman-chen-hkbnews  

 

3. Jesus Did Not Declare All Foods Clean

 

Jesus' declaring all foods clean, a phrase in parenthesis (Mark 7: 19), and thus permitting the eating of all animals, must be a later addition to accommodate the gentiles converting to Christianity, as it is absent in KJV and the Greek manuscripts. Moreover, grammarwise, the participial phrase, “purging [καθαρίζων] all [πάντα]  the [τὰ] food [βρώματα]?” (Mark 7:19 KJV), is in grammatical discordance with the rest of the sentence (cf. Beer 2014). And the sign of interrogation (question mark) “is rarely found before the ninth century” (Metzger 1964:27).  

 

Equally importantly, the context is some Pharisees criticizing Jesus' disciples for failing to wash their hands ritualistically before eating bread. The conversation is centered around whether one should hold the tradition of the elders and always wash one's hands before eating. And Jesus' conclusion is: God's command is more significant than men's tradition, and evil thoughts rather than food taken without washing hands defile us. Here, Jesus is not saying that we can eat any kind of unclean food or animal flesh (cf. Beer 2014). https://www.hkbnews.net/post/jesus-did-not-declare-all-foods-clean-go-vegan-by-dr-chapman-chen     

 

4. Jesus Did Not Drive 2000 Pigs to Death

 

The Gadarene swine story (Mark 5:1-20; note a) cannot be taken literally for there’s no factory farming 2000 years ago, and how could Jesus the Vegan Christ, who eventually died for liberating animals from the Temple (Akers 2020), have had the heart to drive 2000 innocent creatures of God to death?! It is best interpreted from a postcolonial cum Freudian perspective. From a postcolonial anti-imperial perspective (Leander 2013), the narrative, which tells of Jesus exorcising demons from a man into a herd of swine that then drown themselves, can be seen as a metaphor for Jewish resistance against Roman colonialism. "Legion (λεγιών/leg-eh-ohn)," the name of the demons, insinuates the Roman military units, whom the colonized Jews secretly loathed and deemed demonic. From a Freudian perspective (Weatherhead 1951), the word “legion” reveals the obsessed person/psychiatric patient’s repressed traumatic memory of being brutalized by the Roman soldiers or witnessing brutality by them. Untended, the swine may easily have madly dashed when the patient screamed, and, as the herdsmen left Jesus and rushed towards them, the pigs may straightforwardly have charged off the cliff into the sea. https://www.hkbnews.net/post/jesus-did-not-declare-all-foods-clean-go-vegan-by-dr-chapman-chen     

 

5. God Did Not Command Peter to Kill and Eat Animals

 

According to Acts 10:9-16, a voice allegedly told Peter, when he was praying on a rooftop, to kill and eat a sheet of animals handed down from heaven. But Peter declined on the ground that he had never consumed unclean animals. The voice then said thrice, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean" (Acts 10:15). This article, however, contends that God never wanted Peter to actually kill and eat animals. For, upon entering centurion Cornelius’s house later on, Peter explained that the purpose of the vision was to show that God had cleansed all gentiles and removed the divide between gentiles and Jews (Acts 10:27 NIV). Peter repeated this explanation to the other apostles when he returned home (Acts 11:4-17). Moreover, Peter remained steadfastly vegan throughout his entire life (Clement, Homily 7, Chapt. IV, Homily 12, Chapt. VI), and the command to kill and eat animals contradicted the Jerusalem Councils’ vegan decree (Acts 15:20), which was issued in 50 AD and reiterated to Paul in 56 AD. The story is so contrived and unreal that it is likely a fabrication imposed by the Pauline pro-gentile anti-vegan camp, as argued by Prof. Barrie Wilson (see History Valley 2023). https://www.vegantheology.net/post/god-never-wanted-peter-to-kill-and-eat-animals-revised-by-dr-chapman-chen   

 

6. John the Baptist Did Not Eat Locusts

 

Mark 1:6 (NIV) states that John the Baptist ate ἀκρίδας (akridas/locusts) and μελι αγριον (meli agrion/wild honey); and Matthew 3:4 (NIV) claims that John the Baptist's food was locusts (ἀκριδες/akrides) and μελι αγριον. But John the Baptist, as "a man sent from [the All-Loving] God" (John 1:6-8 NIV) to baptize Jesus Christ, must be compassionate and vegan. So ἀκρίδας (akridas/locusts) could be a typographical error or a deliberate corruption ("by the lying pen of the scribes") of ἄκριος (akrios), which means the peak, upper part of the top or, in extension, the tip of a plant. The plant could well be mkali (date palm), as which the Greek ἀκρίδας in old Georgian translations is transposed (cf. Barnaveli 2018). An alternative solution is: ἀκριδες (akrides/locusts) in Matthew 3:4 was originally εγκρίδες (egkrides) -- the seeds of the carob tree (cf. Ehrman 2013). Similarly, the original of μελι αγριον (meli agrion/wild honey) is probably melagria, a plant widely eaten by Judean desert dwellers (Binns 2024). https://www.hkbnews.net/post/john-the-vegan-baptist-ate-neither-real-locusts-nor-bee-honey-by-dr-chapman-chen  

 

7. The Parable of the Prodigal Son Does Not Condone Killing Animals for Food

 

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son (or the Lost Son) (Luke 15:1-31), Jesus talks about the father ordering his servants to slaughter a fat calf in order to hold a feast and celebrate the son’s return (Luke 15:23). Many flesh-greedy people, including Christian priests and preachers, frequently seize upon this verse to justify the killing of innocent creatures of God for food. However, there is good reason to believe that Jesus never intended to approve of flesh-eating by telling this parable.

 

Firstly, the command, “Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was…lost and is found” (Luke 15:23-24 NIV), is only a line uttered by the father as a character in the parable, not by Jesus nor by God. The father in the parable is just a father very caring about his son, but not necessarily a compassionate vegan caring about animals. In other words, he may be a symbol of God in a certain way but he is NOT the omni-benevolent God per se! And he certainly should not be confused with the storyteller Jesus Christ.

 

Secondly, consuming the “fattened calf” is simply a kind of metaphor standing for joyfulness and festivity that supposedly, Jesus’ audience was able to comprehend. This was a parable and no calf was in actuality murdered. Analogously, just because modern people employ idioms like “kill two birds with one stone” doesn’t necessarily mean that they condone such a cruel act (cf. Christian Vegetarian Association 2013)!

 

In conclusion, the moral lesson of this parable is purely this:- if we confess our mistakes, repent, and return to God’s way, we will be forgiven by Him. The carnivorous feast is merely a figure of speech to describe how warmly God will welcome repentant sinners returning to His bosom, and it should never be taken literally.  https://www.hkbnews.net/post/the-parable-of-the-prodigal-son-does-not-condone-killing-animals-for-food-by-dr-chapman-chen

 

8. Abraham’s Sacrifice of his Son/Ram, Pauline Eucharist, and Meatism are the Same Cult

As summarized below, in Chapters 22-23 of her book, What the Bible Really Says, Pastor Janet Regina Hyland (1998/1988) points out that when Abraham 's attempt at sacrificing his own son Isaac was stopped by an angel from God at the last minute, legitimized human sacrifice came to an official end. Unfortunately, that marked "the beginning of a cult of animal sacrifice that eventually became the central act of worship among the Hebrews", which even the strongest denunciation by Israel’s greatest prophets like Amos, Isaiah, Hosea and Micah could not halt.

"Although Isaiah and the other Latter Prophets demanded an end to the slaughter, they had not taken any direct action against the sacrificial cult. But Jesus did." And it was his planned public assault on the sacrificial system that cost Him His life. The Temple was turned by the chief priests and scribes into a gigantic slaughterhouse, "awash in the blood of its victims." When Jesus disrupted the economic flow therein, they plotted to have Him killed.

After Jesus' death, His disciples carried on His Vegan Church. But then Paul who had never met Jesus came along and maintained that the message he preached came directly from Christ in visions and was THE true message. Refusing to learn anything from Jesus' vegan disciples, he inveighed against them from time to time. As a committed Pharisee, he was a staunch supporter of the sacrifices that were at the heart of Temple worship. He insisted that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins]” (Hebrews 9:22  NIV). Contrastively, Jesus declared that "I desire compassion rather than sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13 NASB). Moreover, "in his parable of the Prodigal Son, Christ made it very clear that a loving God did not demand atonement from those who had sinned."

While Jesus rejected the concept of a tetchy God, whose wrath cannot be appeased by anything but the blood of a sacrificial victim, Paul "claimed that Jesus died in place of the sinner and that his shed blood met all the demands for retribution demanded by a God who was outraged by sin", thereby ironically transforming Jesus into a sacrificial lamb, the very thing He was protesting (cf. Thompson 2024). So, even though animal sacrifice per se ceased with the crucifixion of Jesus, the sacrificial religion of Atonement as concocted by Paul has become the foundation of mainstream Christian churches for two thousand years! 

Meanwhile, in my view, thanks to the predominance of the flesh-greedy Pauline camp in Christianity, animal sacrifice has, after all, persisted in the form of carnivorous offerings to the belly-idol of humankind. https://www.hkbnews.net/post/from-abraham-to-jesus-to-paul-the-evolution-of-a-sacrificial-cult-by-pastor-j-r-hyland-introd

 

9. Paul Encourages People to Eat Animals Without Guilt

 

Paul says, "Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience" (1 Corinthians 10:25 NIV). He is adamant that those who are strong in faith may eat anything; whose those who are weak eat only herbs (Romans 14:2), "For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure" (Romans 14:20 KJV). Meat here includes but is not limited to animal flesh sacrificed to idols, that is to say, Paul renounces not only the Kosher law but also Christian veganism itself (Akers 2020:149). The reason why Paul should do so is because he's an anti-vegan apostate sent by the Roman Empire to corrupt Jesus' vegan church from the inside out.

 

9.1. Paul’s Family Background

 

As disclosed by Paul himself, he was born a Roman citizen (Acts 22:27-28); he was a kinsman of the Herodian family (Romans 16:11); he was closely connected with King Agrippa I and II's Aristobarus-clan (Romans 16:10); and his real name was Saul (Acts 7:58, 8:1-3). According to the Herodian family tree diagram prepared by Eisenman (2019:309), Saulus was Herod the Great's great-nephew and King Agripps II's first cousin twice removed.

 

Based on Paul's personal details and Saulus' genealogy, and considering Paul's debasement of the veganism of the Jerusalem Council, his attack on Moses' Law (cf. Tabor 2012:210-226), as well as his close association with the Roman authorities, e.g., Governors Felix and Festus, and King Agrippa II (Acts 23:23-35; 24; 25:13-27; 26), Robert Eisenman (2019) identifies Paul as the Herodian Saulus in Josephus' (2009) The War of the Jews, who plundered the poor (the Ebionites) in Jerusalem, and directly reported to Nero; as "the Enemy" in The Clementine Recognitions (Pseudo-Clement 2014) who nearly beat James the Just to death; and as the liar in The Habakkuk Commentary who hijacked Jesus' Vegan Church. If this is true, then Thijs Voskuilen (2005) has a point in contending that Paul "really was an agent-provocateur working for the Roman administration in Palestine..." His mission was to corrupt Jesus' Vegan Church from the inside out.  https://www.hkbnews.net/post/the-family-background-of-paul-the-anti-vegan-roman-by-dr-chapman-chen

 

9.2. Jesus’ Prophesies about Paul

 

Paul appears to meet Jesus' prophesy about false prophets. “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6 NIV) . In Matthew 7:15 KJV, Jesus warns, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves"! Here, Jesus is alluding to Genesis 49:27, "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divided the plunder" (Genesis 49:27 NIV). Matthew 7:21-22 seems to indicate that the false prophets are Christian, rather than Jewish. 

 

Now, Paul was a self-admitted Benjamite (Romans 11:1). [In fact, the first king of Israel, also named Saul, was a Benjamite who badly persecuted David (I Samuel 18-19)]. Paul, as confessed by himself, had atrociously persecuted vegan Jewish Christians, thus "devouring the prey." Subsequently, he "divided the plunder"and split Christianity:-  he was responsible for preaching to the Gentiles whereas the 12 apostles of Jesus were responsible for preaching to the Jews only (Gal. 2:6-9). Moreover, Paul admitted that after his conversion, he remained a Pharisee (Acts 23:6). In the entire New Testament, the only person that embodies the three identities of a Benjaminite, a wolf in Christian sheep's clothing, and a Pharisee is none other than Paul.  https://www.hkbnews.net/post/the-vegan-christ-s-four-prophesies-about-paul-by-dr-chapman-chen-hkbnews     

 

9.3. Paul Throws James the Just from the Pinnacle of the Temple

 

As James the Just was the undisputed leader of Jesus' Vegan Church, Saul/Paul the anti-vegan apostate, in order to hijack Christianity, had to get rid of him first and foremost. So, around 50 AD, according to Clementine Recognitions (1.69-72), while James the Just was debating in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem with the priest about Jesus' Messianic identity, Saul/Paul, as a Roman secret police officer (cf. Eisenman 2019:219-220), assaulted James with a faggot, cast him down from the top of the Temple, and almost killed him. Saul/Paul then headed towards Damascus, with a view to getting Peter, whom he misbelieved had gone. It's precisely on the way to Damascus that Saul/Paul's self-proclaimed conversion by Christ allegedly took place.

 

In the years to follow, Saul/Paul, posing as "the Apostle", continuously undermined the Jerusalem Council as administered by James and his deputies Peter and John, until 62 AD, when Paul finally succeeded in aiding and abetting the High Priest Ananus to stone James to death. https://www.hkbnews.net/post/paul-the-anti-vegan-throws-james-the-just-off-the-pinnacle-of-the-temple-by-dr-chapman-chen


9.4. Pauls’ Dubious Conversion on his Way to Damascus

 

The "conversion" of Saul/Paul by Christ on the way to Damascus is a turning point in the history of Christianity. In Acts, Saul/Paul the anti-vegan Roman citizen gave three accounts of it (Acts 9:3-7; Acts 22:6-10; Acts 22:17-21), which are strikingly contradictory regarding, e.g., whether Christ directly instructed him to convert the Gentiles, who fell to the ground, who heard the voice, who saw the light, etc. Such kind of self-conflicting evidence would have been dismissed by a court of law. Further, after the alleged conversion, instead of beating him up and putting him in jail, Paul's secret-police-colleagues—who had set out with him to persecute Jewish Christians—actually left him in the care of a devout Jew (cf. Voskuilen 2005). As Paul was a self-admitted chameleon (1 Corinthians 9:19–22; Romans 3:7) who pathetically repeats that he's not a liar (Romans 9:1; 2 Corinthians 11:31; 1 Timothy 2:7), his conversion was probably a fabrication to serve the purpose of domesticating and corrupting Jesus' Vegan Church from the inside on behalf of the Roman Empire. https://www.hkbnews.net/post/did-paul-the-anti-vegan-make-up-his-conversion-by-dr-chapman-chen

 

9.5. Paul’s Attack on the Law and the Jerusalem Council’s Vegan Decree

 

The grievances between Paul and the Jerusalem Council are primarily over veganism rather than circumcision (cf. Akers 2020:149-157). Around A.D. 49, Paul went to meet the Jerusalem Council, ostensibly over the circumcision issue, but there Paul's Greek companion Tius was not compelled to be circumcised (Galatians 2:3). And the apostolic decree issued by James the Just in the meeting merely required Gentile converts to abstain from BLOOD, strangled animals, FOOD sacrificed to idols, and fornication (Acts 15:20). Right after the meeting, Paul yelled at Peter at Antioch for withdrawing from a table of MEAT-EATING Gentiles (Gal. 2:11-14). When Paul went to the Jerusalem Council in A.D.57, due to a rumor about his telling the Jews to forsake Moses, he said nothing, and the Council just REPEATED the diet-related requirements as in the A.D. 50 meeting, and told Paul to join a purification ceremony (Acts 21;17-26).

 

To borrow Tabor's words (2012:216), "up until around A.D. 50, during the first decade of Paul's missionary work in the cities of Asia Minor, when he was working with Barnabas, he was not expressing, at least publicly, the full implications of" his hostile attitude towards Moses' Law and Jesus' vegan church. It is not till roughly A.D. 56, with his epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, that we start to have a glance at "Paul's full views about the implications of 'his' gospel" (Tabor 2012:216).

 

In those letters, Paul blatantly attacks Moses' Law, e.g., "all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse" (Galatians 3:10 NIV) as well as his view on animal-flesh-eating, as aforementioned.

 

All these grievances came from the fact that Pauline Christianity and Jesus' Jewish Christianity represent two different faiths. Paul wanted to do away with the Mosaic Law, especially veganism, while the Vegan Christ and His disciples aimed at restoring the original compassionate law of God. https://www.hkbnews.net/post/the-grievances-between-paul-and-jesus-vegan-church-by-dr-chapman-chen

 

9.6. Paul Has a Hand in James’ Death

 

In AD 57-59, Paul was kept on guard in Herod's Palace in Caesarea. But he was able to receive visitors and to preach. He was even once granted temporary leave by the Roman Governor to travel to Macedonia, whence he wrote the 2 Corinthians. In Caesarea, Paul regularly conferred with those in power, including King Agrippa II, Bernice, Felix and Festus. He unabashedly flattered them, probably sharing secret intelligence with them and telling them that his opponent James the Just was the Zaddik of the opposition alliance (Eisenman 2012:202), eventually leading to the stoning to death of James. 

 

In AD 59, Paul actually requested to be transferred to Rome so that he might appeal to Emperor Nero, despite the fact that Agrippa II and Festus thought that he had not committed any serious crime and could be released any minute! So maybe, Paul wanted to reported personally to Nero about the dissenting Jews?

 

According to Acts of the Apostles, Paul stayed in Rome from AD 60 till AD 62, where again he was allowed to receive visitors and to preach, being escorted by only one guard. By AD 62, Paul had probably returned to Palestine to carry out his mission as a secret agent. There's good reason to believe he was in reality the Saulus who reappeared in Jerusalem in the same year with his (Saulus') brother Costobarus, according to Robert Eisenman (2012:190-192). For both Paul and Saulus were relatives of the Herods (Romans 16:11 ESV), and Paul's original name before his self-claimed conversion by Christ was none but Saul!

 

In AD 62, Jesus' natural brother, James the Just, was sentenced to death by stoning by the High Priest Ananus. Around AD 64, in the aftermath of Jame's stoning, Saulus/Paul and Costobarus plundered the poor (Eisenman 2012:175, 190). The poor could refer to the Ebionites, the most important group of early vegan Jewish Christians, for Ebionite in Greek means poor. https://www.vegantheology.net/post/a-chronicle-of-paul-the-anti-vegan-apostate-by-dr-chapman-chen

 

 

9.7. Paul’s Role in the Fall of Jerusalem

 

In AD 66, as a consequence of James' martyrdom, a revolution against Roman colonialism broke out. Saulus/Paul, falsely representing the "peace party" in Jerusalem, went out of the city, and pleaded with Agrippa II to invite the Roman army outside to enter Jerusalem and suppress the revolution. The Roman troops, in response to the invitation, matched into the city. They managed to occupy parts of Jerusalem but did not have complete control over the entire city (Eisenman 2012:192) .

 

In AD 68, James' Jewish followers avenged his murder by slaying the High Priest Ananus and leaving his corpse naked and unburied. The Roman Commander had failed to capture Jerusalem and retreated to the coast. Saulus/Paul fled with Costobarus to Cestius' camp and then to Nero in Corinth, where Saulsu/Paul gave a briefing to His Majesty on the situation in Palestine, and successfully recommended Vespasian to be the person-in-charge of the repression of the uprising in Palestine (Eisenman 2012:192-193) 

 

Early Church texts put Paul's death some time after the outbreak of the War against Rome, around the years 68-69 CE. Here we do begin to approach convergence with Josephus' 'Saulus' who disappears at approximately the same time from Josephus' reporting, though not before he provided Nero with a final briefing in Corinth on events in Palestine (Eisenman 2012: 193).   

 

Vespasian initiated the Roman campaign in the Jewish War. In AD 70, Vespasian's son Titus, completed the siege of Jerusalem, captured and totally destroyed the city. Most of the vegan Jewish Christians were killed.

 

We do not know what happened next. Some have suggested Paul may have gone on to Spain as he had said he wanted to. However, there is no reliable information on his ultimate fate. We do not know when or how he died. The conclusion seems to be justified, however, that there is no reason to assume the Romans stopped protecting him, as they had been doing for years by that time. He had practically become a personal investment to them. Moreover, they would have to have been utterly blind not to see that Saul of Tarsus was furthering their goals by his actions, speeches and writings under the name of ‘Paul’. Therefore, it seems unlikely that they would suddenly decide to martyr him, as Christian mythology has insisted. After all, why would the Romans kill one of their own citizens, a (former) member of the secret police in Jerusalem, who: (a) said that God’s salvation had come upon them; (b) that ‘the Jews’ were bad; and (c) that everyone had to pay their taxes to the Roman authorities, be a good citizen and refrain from resisting persecutions? https://www.vegantheology.net/post/a-chronicle-of-paul-the-anti-vegan-apostate-by-dr-chapman-chen

 

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